Extraction Shooter: #1 Worst Gaming Label in Shooting History

Former Bungle developer Chris Sides slams the term “extraction shooter”, complaining that the name confuses players and misrepresents the genre’s true identity.

A Genre Defined by a Mechanic, and Not By Experience

When former Bungie developer Chris Sides speaks about his upcoming games, the entire gaming fanbase listens to his every word like a messenger from the gaming heavens. This time, he dropped a bombshell: he hates the term “extraction shooter.” Sides thinks it’s dumb, terrible, and the only genre where its name is literally a mechanic. One of his frustrations shines a spotlight on one of gaming’s most confusing labels, and it’s a debate worth paying attention to.

Sides’ central argument is a simple little comment, but it is devastating: the phrase ” extraction shooter” doesn’t tell players what kind of experience they’re signing up for. Extraction is just one mechanic, getting out alive with your loot. But when that mechanic becomes the genre’s defining feature, wildly different games get lumped together under the same umbrella. As Sides put it, “How do you know what you’re going to get?”

Take Helldivers 2. Technically, it has extraction mechanics. But does it play anything like Escape from Tarkov? Not even close. Yet both can be called extraction shooters. That’s the problem: the label muddies comparisons instead of clarifying them.

Marketing vs. Reality in the Extraction Shooter Landscape

Side points out that games like Arena Breakout and Tarkov fit the mold of gaming names much better, as they’re built around tense, high-stakes survival and loot extraction. But then you look at Arc Raiders, which doesn’t feel like Tarkov at all. Compare it to Rust, and suddenly the similarities make more sense. So is Rust an extraction shooter too? The boundaries blur until the term loses it meaning altogether.

This confusion isn’t just academic. Genre names are supposed to guide players, set expectations, and help developers market their games. When the name itself is misleading, everyone loses. “The genre doesn’t even know what it is,” Sides argues. And if the genre can’t define itself, how can players know what they’re buying?

Sides even revealed that while working on Bungie’s upcoming Marathon, he begged marketing to ditch the term. He wanted something clearer, something that captured the spirit of the game rather than reducing it to a single mechanic. Bungie, however, stuck with “team-based extraction shooter.” The result? Marathon now carries a label its own former director of product believes is broken.

Ironically, the flawed terminology hasn’t stopped games from thriving. Arc Raiders, which Embark Studios cleverly branded as a multiplayer extraction adventure, sold over 4 million copies in less than two weeks and hit 700,000 concurrent players. Clearly, players are hungry for the gameplay loop, even if the genre name leaves them scratching their heads. Meanwhile, Marathon has been delayed to 2026 as Bungie incorporates playtest feedback, giving the studio more to redefine both the game and its identity.

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